World gold and silver · 9 min read
The American Eagle: a complete history
When the United States entered the bullion coin market in 1986, it did something characteristic: rather than commission new designs, it reached back to what many consider the most beautiful American coins ever struck. The American Gold and Silver Eagle revived two early twentieth-century masterpieces and put them on coins built for modern investors. The result became the best-selling bullion programme in the United States and a benchmark held around the world.
An act of Congress
The Eagles were created by legislation. The Gold Bullion Coin Act of 1985 authorised the gold coin, and a related provision, sometimes called the Liberty Coin Act, signed by President Reagan on 9 July 1985, authorised the silver. Part of the motivation was practical: the United States held a large stockpile of silver, and a bullion coin was a way to put it to use while giving investors a domestic alternative to the Canadian Maple Leaf, the Mexican Libertad and the soon-to-be-sanctioned Krugerrand. The first coins were released in 1986.
Saint-Gaudens and the Gold Eagle
The Gold Eagle's obverse revives Augustus Saint-Gaudens' full-length figure of Liberty, striding forward with a torch and an olive branch, the Capitol behind her. Saint-Gaudens created it in 1907 for the $20 double eagle, a coin commissioned by Theodore Roosevelt who wanted American money to rival the beauty of ancient Greek and Roman coins. For the bullion coin's reverse, the sculptor Miley Busiek designed a family of eagles, a male carrying an olive branch to a nest holding a female and young, which she described as a tribute to the American family. That reverse ran from 1986 until 2021, when it was replaced by Jennie Norris's close portrait of an eagle's head.
The Gold Eagle's specification
Like the Krugerrand, the Gold Eagle is 22 carat for durability, but with its own twist: it is 91.67% gold, with 3% silver and the balance copper, which gives it a slightly warmer tone than a copper-only alloy. The one-ounce coin contains a full troy ounce of gold despite its higher total weight, and the range includes one-ounce, half-ounce, quarter-ounce and tenth-ounce sizes. American gold for American coins was a point of national pride written into the programme.
Weinman and the Silver Eagle
The Silver Eagle's obverse revives Adolph A. Weinman's Walking Liberty, created for the half dollar struck from 1916 to 1947 and long regarded as one of the most beautiful American coin designs. Liberty strides toward the sunrise draped in the flag. For the reverse, the Mint's chief engraver John Mercanti designed a heraldic eagle with a shield, thirteen stars above for the original colonies, a deliberately formal, heraldic emblem rather than a soaring bird. Mercanti's reverse lasted 35 years until 2021, when Emily Damstra's design of an eagle coming in to land replaced it.
The Silver Eagle's specification
The Silver Eagle is struck only in a one-ounce size, in .999 fine silver, with a face value of one dollar. It weighs 31.10 grams and measures 40.6 mm across, slightly larger than a silver Britannia or a silver Maple Leaf, a detail that matters when choosing a capsule. First released in November 1986, it has been produced every year since and is among the most heavily traded silver coins in the world, with bullion mintages running into the tens of millions in some years.
Collecting and storing Eagles
The Eagle programme offers enormous scope for collectors: bullion, proof and uncirculated finishes, mint marks on the collector issues, the 2021 design transition that created Type 1 and Type 2 reverses, and special privy-marked anniversary coins. For investors the appeal is liquidity and the backing of the United States Mint. The 40.6 mm Silver Eagle needs a capsule sized for it specifically, not a 38 or 39 mm holder; the fractional gold coins each have their own diameter from the tenth-ounce upward.
See the recommended capsules for every size of this coin.
More in our coin histories.